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MARS IS AN unpleasant place.
It’s cold, full of deserts, and has very little oxygen or gravity.
The average annual temperature on Mars around -53°C. At its hottest, Mars could hit 26°C near the equator in the middle of the day. In the Martian winter, however, temperatures could fall to -128°C.
That’s why the first requirement for visiting the red planet would be a spacesuit.
But we were curious: How long could someone survive a summer day on Mars without all this fancy equipment, say, wearing only jeans and T-shirt and while holding his or her breath — which the average human can do for a little more than a minute.
The answers is, unsurprisingly, not very long.
“The most serious immediate impact would be from the low atmospheric pressure that is nearly a vacuum compared to Earth,” Chris Webster from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Curiosity rover roaming Mars, said in an email.
Within minutes the skin and organs would rupture, outgas, and produce a quick, painful death.
If not killed by the low-pressure atmosphere — there are many other environmental factors that make Mars inhospitable to humans without protection.
“Any humans on Mars would have to contend with the lack of oxygen — only about 0.1 per cent compared to Earth’s 20 per cent — the very cold surface temperatures, the ubiquitous and irritating dust, the intense UV radiation, surface chemicals and oxidants,” Webster said.
And all this before they started looking for food and water!
This post is part of a continuing series that answers all of your “why” questions related to science. Have your own question? Email dspector@businessinsider.com with the subject line “Q&A”; tweet your question to @BI_Science; or post to our Facebook page.
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Jesus even parts of mars get better weather then Ireland
How long could you last wearing jeans and a T-shirt during an Irish summer?
Clue: not very long.
Would tight underpants not help a bit?
The question should be how long Mars would survive if we sent Chuck Norris
Question should be how long would you survive if you tried to send Chuck Norris anywhere
Have you not watched Total Recall thejournal?
True. Don’t want to get on the wrong side of Cohagen.
Quaid Quaiiiiiiiiiiid Quaaaaaaaaid
See you at the party Richter
Give the people the air Cohagen
His actual name was Colin ohagan, he’s my fifth cousin, twice removed!
Is he an air baron too?
Yeah and he also sells jars of Martian air to fools in America. Makes a killing on it!!!
Don’t tell that corrupt bast££d D.O.B
Man I got five kids to feed
Mars doesn’t have a moving core so it doesn’t have a magnetic field which would mean cosmic radiation would kill you quite quickly. Hypoxia would be another factor because of the lack of oxygenated blood to your brain. Because of the low atmospheric pressure the boiling point of water would drop to about 35 degrees Celsius which would cause your tongue to boil in your mouth and choke you. Also all of the fluids in your body would be forced out because of the pressure difference.
But on the plus side, the women have 3 boobies
Mmm mm mmmm you make me wish I had three hands
That’s it Gary I’m defiantly booking it for my mates stag do, sounds like the effects are pretty similar
You’re doing just fine with two
So no chance of a decent cup of tea then, Gary?
Arnold swarzennegger lasted less than 30 seconds in his dream in the film total recall, you’d be doing well to last longer than him.
That wasn’t a dream.
I’m pretty sure it was, as far as I can remember he wakes up in bed with Sharon stone consoling him, lucky guy, pity he had to terminate her, “Consider that a divorce”, quality show.
No.
Business insider,
You are talking through Uranus….
Could we atleast give it a try, step forward Lucinda Creighton
Send Patrick Lyons up first and let’s put this hypothesis to the test..
Nice one.
Yer wan looks spaced out already
Sounds like fun… When are we going?
Very little gravity? Who proofreads these articles?
George, it’s about 3.7m/s/s. It’s a lot compared to the moon but not a lot compared to earth.
In the context of rocky bodies in the solar system, 3.7 m/s2 is fairly high. “Very little” is misleading.
BTW, I’m beginning to think that some subgroup is redthumbing everything I post…
George, I see the angle you are coming at now.
In fairness, George, the article was not in the context of rocky bodies in the solar system. It was in the context of human survival and the relationship between conditions on Mars and conditions on Earth. In that context, Mars does indeed have very little gravity.
The gravity on Mars is high enough for humans to live without known longterm effects. People would probably get taller, longterm, and it would take a while to adapt to Earth gravity again. Having said that, astronauts who have been longterm in effectively zero gravity on the ISS, readapt fairly quickly.
As Mars gravity is close on 40% of Earth’s, I stand by saying that “very little” is inaccurate and misleading.
But these astronauts were born on earth and spent most of their lives on earth. It would be different if moving from a low gravity to high gravity environment I imagine ?
I still don’t see a problem with using the phrase “very little”. If someone were only consuming 40% of their daily caloric intake you would say they were consuming “very little”. If someone were only consuming 40% of their daily water intake you would say they were consuming “very little” water. If someone only had 40% of the required amount of oxygen to breath, you would say they had “very little” oxygen. Likewise, gravity on Mars that is only 40% that of what’s on Earth is “very little” gravity.
I’d put 40% as little, and below 20% as very little, myself. Still, there aren’t any rules that I’m aware of about these distinctions. I suppose it’s fairly contextual.
I think we can agree that there are no rules and that it is contextual. I guess what the author is doing is trying to contextualise for an audience somewhat unfamiliar with astronomy, rather than trying to impart a set of statistics and facts that would baffle the uninformed reader or leave them confused. But, again, that’s only my interpretation. (Personally, I would classify 0-5% as negligible, 5-20% as extremely little, 20-40% as very little, and 40-60% as little. But it depends on what is being measured and, again, the context)
Say if the earth’s gravity equated to a shot of whisky (a nice 18 year old say), in a crystal whisky tumbler, and you took away 60% of it, it’d look like there was feck all in the glass…. so i’m cool with the ‘very little’ description.
…on the other hand, if the you filled the glass to the top, (choose either poison, whisky or gavity)….we’d all be welded to floor!!
It’s a god awful sad affair.. To the girl with the mousey hair
Is say people constantly talking about politicians and bankers on stories like this are doing it on purpose. Ye must be,surely?
I’m still going anyway
Can we ask all politicians, bankers & lawyers to please go there???????
Not if I get all the cold callers who got my number on the spacecraft first, irritating ba##ards
I don’t know, and I don’t care
At least you’re not a spacer Sheik.
Ah, that old chestnut?
About as long as you could on earth, there problem solved next question. ?……
Very interesting.
have your say